Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 |genre = Action, third-person shooter |modes = Single-player, multiplayer |ratings = |platforms = Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows |media = DVD, DVD-DL, Blu-ray Disc, Steam |input = Gamepad, keyboard, mouse }} Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (commonly shortened to Lost Planet) is a third-person shooter video game with some role-playing game elements developed and published by Capcom for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The game was directed by Kenji Oguro and produced by Keiji Inafune. Lost Planet takes place in the year T.C. -80 on planet E.D.N. III. After the Earth's conditions become too hostile for humans due to war, global warming, and pollution, an interstellar megacorporation named NEVEC (Ne'o-'''Ve'nus 'C'onstruction) plans to colonize E.D.N. III, a new Earth-like planet in grip of a brutal ice age. NEVEC discover that E.D.N. III is inhabited by an aggressive and territorial insectoid alien species named the Akrid, which come in all shapes and sizes and generate their own thermal energy. 150 years after a great war was fought in which the humans lost to the Akrid, the plot of the game revolves around Wayne Holden, a "snow pirate" who attempts to overthrow the ruthless NEVEC (who still vie for control over E.D.N. III) and help colonization efforts for the remainder of the human race by destroying the Akrid, all the while attempting to survive both betrayals and the extreme conditions of the planet. Lost Planet received mixed reviews on the PlayStation 3 and PC, but more positive reception for the Xbox 360 version. The game sold over a million copies worldwide by April 2007. On May 27, 2008, a special edition of the game was released in North America titled Lost Planet: Colonies. A sequel to Lost Planet, titled Lost Planet 2, was announced in February 2009. Gameplay The game is played through the third person over-the-shoulder view. Players are able to switch between first-person and third-person at any moment. Players either travel on foot or ride various types of mechanized suits called Vital Suits (VS). VS's carry heavy weapons such as chainguns and rocket launchers. They can pick up weapons lying on the ground and fire multiple weapons at once. On foot, players are able to use a grappling hook to pull themselves up to normally hard-to-reach places, or to hook onto a VS and hijack it. Driving VS's and using certain weapons requires thermal energy. Also, the planet's cold temperature causes the characters' thermal energy level to continually decrease. Players can replenish their thermal energy level by defeating enemies or activating data posts. Data posts also allow players to use their navigational radars to see incoming enemies. In the game's campaign mode, when a character's thermal energy is depleted, their life slowly melts away, which eventually causes death. The campaign consists of 11 levels. Multiplayer Multiplayer also requires players to monitor their thermal energy level, but here, reaching zero does not cause death. Instead, the characters cannot use VSs or fire the weapons which require thermal energy. Multiplayer consists of four modes, called Elimination, Team Elimination, Post Grab, and Fugitive. Players score points by killing other players and activating posts, and they lose points for being killed or committing suicide. Post grab is a mode where players on opposite teams compete to capture as many posts as possible before the set time runs out. Team-Elimination is a 16-player team competition, and Elimination is a 16-player free-for-all mode. Finally, Fugitive is a game mode where one person is marked as a fugitive, and the other players try to take away all the fugitive's points before time runs out. Story The game starts with Wayne, his father Gale, and a band of snow pirates taking on a mission to kill a giant Akrid known as Green Eye. During their mission, Wayne is separated from his squad and watches his father's VS explode. Wayne is left drifting in the snow and is frozen solid for 30 years. Wayne wakes up and finds himself in the care of Yuri Solotov and his crew of snow pirates; Luka and Rick. Yuri is particularly interested in the thermal extension (or Harmonizer) attached to Wayne's arm, which has enabled Wayne to survive all this time. Yuri tells Wayne that NEVEC is working on a project designed to thaw out the planet to make it safe to live on. Wayne joins Yuri's band, and while on a mission to wipe out an Akrid hive, fights a woman named Basil. Basil tells him that Yuri has killed her husband and that she was looking for revenge. At the same time, Yuri mysteriously disappears, leaving Wayne to question his loyalty. With the help of Rick and Luka Wayne discover's the Green Eye's location and destroys it with Gale's VS. Shortly after, Wayne and his VS are attacked by NEVEC's field commander, Bandero. Slowly, after escaping the attack Wayne remembers that it wasn't Green Eye who killed his father, but Bandero and NEVEC who did so. Wayne barely escapes back to Luka and finds that their pirate fortress has been sieged and that Rick has been taken captive. For the next year, Wayne and Luka initiate hit and run attacks against NEVEC, which has taken control over the human race. During one of their attacks, they discover Rick is still alive due to him being rescued by Basil. Basil and Wayne take a NEVEC trooper named Joe hostage. It is after taking Joe prisoner that Basil goes on to explain that the Harmonizer slows down the aging process and unlocks the powers to Gale's VS. After they interrogate him, they find out more about NEVEC's Frontier Project. Joe tells them it is NEVEC's plan to make E.D.N. III a safe place to live for humans. After joining the snow pirates, Joe arranges for Wayne to meet with NEVEC leadership, inadvertently leading to an ambush where Bandero shoots Wayne in the leg. During the confrontation, Wayne and Joe learn that the project will use T-ENG to wipe out all Akrid, but will also kill all humans left on the surface while all of NEVEC watches safely from the sky. Horrified, the pirates go on a final mission to stop the project. Wayne confronts Bandero a final time, killing him and regaining his father's rebuilt VS. Wayne finds Yuri and before dying from torture, Yuri gives Wayne an attachment to his Harmonizer which would allow him to unlock the true power of his VS. While Wayne begins his attack on NEVEC's honcho, Commander Isenberg, Basil sacrifices herself to buy him time and Joe sets off explosives to destroy the elevator from which NEVEC would hide. Wayne confronts Isenberg and after fighting in VSs, shoots him in the head with a single pistol bullet right before he passes out, losing his memory again. Wayne wakes up to find Luka starting to melt all of the ice and snow from the planet, and slowly colonization begins once more. Development Capcom first introduced Lost Planet on December 10, 2005 at an invite only press conference announcing Jun Takeuchi as both the producer and executive producer, Kenji Ohguro as the designer and Shin Kurosawa whom wrote the original story . At the conference, Capcom announced that they would follow the tradition of basing the main character of their game after a real person. Capcom decided to base the main character Wayne after the famous Korean star, Byung Hun Lee. To capture the full essence of Lee, Capcom used a program called Face Robot. This allowed Capcom to use Lee's basic expressions and translate them to Wayne in the game. Capcom had Lee dress up in a recreation of Waynes attire and then did full body 3D scan to translate Lee into Wayne using a function called GATOR. But instead of using Lee for character animations, the developers did so manually. As for environments, Capcom used up to 300,000 to 600,000 polygons in the screen at once for a single battle. They then used an XSI program and then manually added in elaborate details. One of the main focuses of Lost Planet was to make a game that could be a commercial success in both North America and Japan. Lost Planet also made an appearance at E3 2006. There, a new trailer debuted and a Xbox Live demo was announced for released by May 11, 2006, both multiplayer and single player. At the Expo, Keiji Inafune explained Capcom's reason for choosing the Xbox 360 as the prime console saying "What the Xbox 360 represents is a great balance. When you think about when it was released, what it can do, how much it costs, the type of games it will have, it's just in a very nice position. The PlayStation 3 being that expensive is going to put it out of the price range of a lot of people, but yet the 360 will still be there. It will still be something that's affordable for enough people. The one disadvantage, unfortunately, is that it did not succeed in Japan.". Lost Planet also made an appearance at Leipzig 2006, where it showcased a brand new trailer showing glimpses on online multiplayer. Following its appearance in Leipzig, Lost Planet also appeared at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show and DICE 2009. Post release Collector's and Colonies Edition The Collector's Edition of the game was released on January 12, 2007 worldwide. The Collectors Edition included a special edition tin cover, an art book including exclusive cover art, multimedia cut scenes, and multiplayer maps that would not be released until months later for free. Lost Planet: Colonies is a special edition of Extreme Condition for the Xbox 360 and PC. The game includes new multiplayer maps, a Human vs Akrid multiplayer mode, and a selection of new multiplayer characters and weapons. Colonies also introduces four new single-player modes: '''Score Attack, Time Trial Battle Mode, first-person-shooter mode, and Unlimited Mode. The game also includes cross-platform play between Xbox Live and Games for Windows - Live users. The Colonies edition is not compatible with the original Lost Planet save games or multiplayer game, so players of each release may only play with others who have the same release. The game was released in North America on May 27, 2008; in Japan on May 29; and in Europe on June 6. Sequel A sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition was announced on February 23, 2009, as an Xbox Live video that showed E.D.N. III melted giving way to lush jungles. Developers say that there have been major changes in the gameplay including the improved MT Framework engine and a new co-op campaign. Downloadable content Capcom announced three maps packs and another single map for downloadable content. The first map pack was released on March 9, 2007. The pack included "Radar Field" and "Island 902". The second pack was released on April 6, 2007 and contained the maps "Hive Complex" and "Trial Point". Then Capcom released the single map pack, "Battle Ground" on June 7, 2007 and the final pack on August 16, 2007 which included the maps "Lost Technology", "Ruins", and "Ice Drop". On July 16, 2007, Capcom announced the first downloadable content for the PC version. The content included new view modes resembling that of the Resident Evil series and new multiplayer maps downloadable on the console versions. The content also included new characters, including Joe from the campaign, Mega Man, and Dead Rising's Frank West. Feature film In July 2008 it was announced that David Hayter was in talks with Warner Bros. to write and direct a film adaptation of Lost Planet. On July 15, 2008 at E3 2008, Capcom announced their partnership with Warner Brothers to make the film based on the game. Father and son producing team Avi and Ari Arad also having been tapped to work on the project, and although no cast have yet been signed on, the film is set for release sometime in 2011. Reception Consumers The demo for the Xbox 360 version was the second-highest downloaded demo on Xbox Live in September 2007, and the game was the 10th most played game on the online service in 2007. The Xbox 360 version was a best-seller in North America and the UK and was the highest selling Xbox 360 game in the United States in January 2007 with 329,000 units sold. Capcom shipped a million units of the game worldwide by January 17, 2007, and by the end of March 2007, it had sold 1.37 million units. A year after its release, the Japanese Xbox 360 version had sold 61,555 units and was the 10th highest selling Xbox 360 game in the region. The PlayStation 3 version was a best-seller in Japan and North America and entered the British sales charts at position 34 the week of its release. The North America version received a boost in sales in December 2008 when Amazon offered a sale on the title. Both console versions were popular titles on American video game rental company GameFly, with the Xbox 360 version the service's number one rental across all platforms for a time in early 2007. The PC version placed on the list of top 5 sellers in Japan. As of 27 June 2009, the game has sold over 2.24 million copies, including 1.79 million on the Xbox 360 alone. Critical reception Reception of Lost Planet was mixed with the exception of the Xbox 360 version, which received more positive reviews, including a score of 36/40 from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. The game's visuals and combat were praised, but reviewers criticized the controls, voice acting, and slowdowns in the frame rate. Reviewers were generally in favor the of the game's premise and mechanics, and the gameplay was compared to Bionic Commando and Mega Man. The frigid landscape of E.D.N. III was welcomed as a change of pace from the common settings portrayed in other shooters, such as World War II. GameSpy said "levels are evocative in a way that yet another urban wasteland, spaceship interior, or burnt out WWII battlefield can't be." The game's system of forcing the player to constantly search for T-Eng to survive was considered novel, if not particularly challenging. IGN's Erik Brudvig said "The energy doesn't drain fast enough to ever become a serious issue in most stages, but it does provide a nice nudge to the player to keep them moving along towards the next big fight." Lost Planet's graphics were widely praised on the Xbox 360 and PC versions. VideoGamer.com said "game has some of the most impressive visuals seen on the Xbox 360". Other reviewers referred to the visuals as "astonishing", "gorgeous", and "brilliant looking". There were complaints, however, that the PlayStation 3 version's graphics were not as good. Australia's PALGN said "The Xbox 360 version leaves the PS3 version for dead in terms of overall polish and running speed, though the difference is primarily noticeable when you put the two next to each other. This is very disappointing, given that it’s come out a year later." The audio received comments ranging from mediocre to good, and the voice acting was widely panned. GameSpot said "The voice acting is stiff at best, and sounds completely phony at worst." he design of the Akrid was praised, and the enemies were compared to the monsters of Panzer Dragoon, Dune, and Starship Troopers. IGN said "From the giant earth worm that looks like it was ripped straight from Frank Herbert's imagination to the giant flying moth that toes the line between beautiful and scary, the big bugs are a sight to behold." The boss battles against giant Akrid were considered massive and epic; PALGN compared them to Shadow of the Colossus. The character design was received less positively, especially the protagonist, Wayne. Reviewers criticized his name, lack of character development, and inability to look up. A common complaint was Lost Planet's story, which was described as confusing, convoluted, and poorly translated. GameSpot said "The story plays out initially as a revenge tale. As the narrative progresses, however, it gets more and more convoluted as characters are introduced and the plot swerves out of control." Lost Planet's multiplayer component received mixed remarks. Reviewers were generally pleased with the game options available to players, but were disappointed that multiplayer was online only, with no opportunity for cooperative play. GamePro criticized the Xbox 360 version's matchmaking system, which would drop all players from a match if the host disconnected. At the time of its release, the PC version suffered from numerous technical glitches, making online play impossible for many players. Awards IGN gave the Xbox 360 version their Editor's Choice award, and it won the award for best Xbox 360 game at the Leipzig Games Convention. It received 1UP.com's award for best action game atE3 2006, and an "Award for Excellence" at the 2007 Japan Game Awards. The game's marketing campaign won several awards at the 2007 MI6 awards show hosted by the Association of Electronic Interactive Marketers, including the "Gold" award for its limited edition packaging and "Silver" awards for its promotional poster and theatrical trailer. Lost Planet's audio was nominated for Best Cinematic/Cut-Scene Audio and Sound Design of the Year at the Game Audio Network Guild's 2007 ceremony, but lost both awards to Gears of War. External links * [http://www.lostplanet-thegame.com/ Official Lost Planet: Extreme Condition site] * Official Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Japanese site Category:Lost Planet Games Category:Lost Planet